Gimme a J! Gimme an O! Gimme a B! Gimme an S!

On Election Day, the winds of change were blowing at hurricane speed. Congressional Democrats who were successful in passing Wall Street reforms, dramatic changes in health care and dozens of other historical measures were swept out of office. The public wanted jobs and more jobs. Come Jan. 1, the “change voters” are in for the shock of their lives.

There is a new group of elected officials about to descend on Capitol Hill. Of the 66 new Republican members of Congress, only a handful have ever held any elective office. They ran on a platform of not being professional politicians, so they don’t have a clue what it’s like to be responsive to the people.

Many of the new members were elected with Tea Party support, which makes them advocates of smaller government and reducing taxes. Just about everyone is in favor of fewer taxes and less government, until the less government hits home.

People in places like Levittown and Buffalo were anxious to see changes in Washington, but the changes that are coming won’t be the ones they asked for. The new crop of political neophytes want to cut back on Social Security, reduce benefits for needy college students and emasculate so-called ObamaCare. They want to loosen government regulations and repeal the new restrictions on how Wall Street does business.

They don’t like programs like the National Endowment for the Arts or National Public Radio because they think those programs are for liberals and not common people.

They have already shot themselves in the foot by demanding an end to Congressional earmarks, the discretionary money that senators and representatives bring home to their districts.

The demand that earmarks be ended is probably the dumbest thing that the freshman reformers want to do. My fellow Herald columnist, former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato, earned the nickname “Senator Pothole” because he was successful in bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to Long Island for cancer centers, replacing aging roads and bridges and a variety of other local needs.